It is a fundamental right of individuals to be named when they are charged with an offence.

Now that may come as a shock to the Calgary Police Service who, in their increasingly ham-fisted way of dealing with ongoing image problems, made the decision the name of an officer charged with aggravated assault would not be revealed.

The bizarre reason why the CPS didn’t name the six-year member of the force is that the alleged offence took place during the execution of his duties.

Oh, so if a teacher is accused of committing sexual assault in a classroom, he isn’t named? Or if a Calgary Transit driver goes over a cliff while apparently drunk at the wheel, she doesn’t have her name appear in the local newspaper?

Heck, the police sometimes even release the names of people who have already served their sentence — paid their debt to society, if you will — and aren’t actually charged with any offence, but are deemed to be possible risks in the future.

Do the brass sit around each Monday morning and wonder what more they can do to lose the public’s confidence?

And it’s not as though a charge of aggravated assault is akin to facing a fine for littering — it’s only one step down on the Criminal Code severity scale from a homicide indictment and there’s a maximum penalty of 14 years. Anyone convicted is going to face jail time.

Yet now, if you’re a Calgary police officer, and you decide to open fire on passing strangers, then you’re saved from some apparent later embarrassment of being initially publicly identified because you were wearing your uniform? Talk about different strokes for different folks.

And we wonder why the public is losing faith in the police service in this city when lame-brained decisions like this are brought into play. Do the brass sit around each Monday morning and wonder what more they can do to lose the public’s confidence?

Thankfully, first Global News and then the rest of the city media made the name of the officer – Trevor Lindsay – public, resulting in the latest CPS public relations blunder being undertaken in vain.

But it isn’t just the police who have this all backwards. Judging from the comments of various so-called experts over this issue, the whole argument about naming the officer is judged to be a case of keeping the public informed as well as holding our police service accountable.

Now undoubtedly those things are important, but there is a much more serious issue in play and that involves the rights of the accused constable himself, though at this moment in time, it is doubtful the officer would quite see it that way.

To put it simply, the powers representing law and order never want publicity. Take that as a given. They never want to name the individual being investigated, thrown in jail or brought before a court. And it is not because of possible embarrassment for the person concerned or his friends or family.

No, it’s because the weapon of secrecy always serves the ends of the powerful. Countless people are being held in jails across the world desperate for their names to be known. They dream in vain for the smallest shred of publicity because they understand it may go some way along a very rocky road that could eventually ensure a fair and open hearing.

This isn’t nebulous legal posturing, but instead forms the basis of the freedom we enjoy today and that politicians, judges, lawyers and policemen are always striving to limit and curtail. It makes their jobs easier if the individual is anonymous, if the jury becomes an expert panel picked by them and the eventual public write up comes courtesy of the government ministry.

We should never trust these people, no matter how sincere they appear, because they want to do it the easy way, and from laziness, it’s not too long a walk to something much more insidious.

So the accused constable has to be named. Not just for our benefit, but also for his.

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